Sunday, June 14, 2015

Yesterday, Hillary Clinton took a do-over. When she first declared her candidacy for president of the United States, it proved to be something of a
flop. So, yesterday she tried again.

Of course, the major news story from her initial foray into
the world of campaigning was her refusal to take questions from the press. It
did not denote confidence. It did not show us a woman who was in charge. It did
not signal competence.

Looking like you fear the press does not make you a very
credible candidate.

Can you imagine Margaret Thatcher refusing to take questions
from anyone, at any time, for any reason?

But, then, Margaret Thatcher earned her position as prime
minister of Great Britain. Aside from being what Camille Paglia called a “fraud,”
Hillary is riding her husband’s coattails. Even her most ardent supporters
cannot name a single accomplishment that would justify her ascent to the
presidency.

Hillary Clinton has been getting very bad press, from friend
and foe alike. She does not command respect because no one can think of a reason to
respect her. She was much better at posturing than she was at achieving
anything of consequence.

In effect, the only reason why young women, in particular,
seem to be flocking to the Hillary candidacy seems to have something to do with
the glass ceiling. If I recall correctly, Margaret Thatcher’s ascent in
politics was never seen as a way to make a political point.

Just because race and gender were at one time uniquely
disqualifying, that does not mean that they should now be uniquely qualifying.

When Americans voted for an unqualified and incompetent
African-American president they believed that his election would radically
improve conditions for America’s minority communities. Today, many young women believe
that placing an unqualified and incompetent woman in the White House will be a
boon for females in the job market.

No one understood that Barack Obama would only improve the
status of American blacks if he did a good job. Once he was seen as not up to
the job, the reputation of American blacks suffered.

Now, Hillary Clinton wants to become president in order to
make a political point. People are not overly worried about her inability to do
the job because they assume that Bill Clinton will be there to do it for her. Another victory for feminism!

In recent years, many women have assumed positions of
corporate power. If we are to believe Bryce Covert, their
track record is not very good.

Naturally, Covert does her best to explain it away, but
leadership roles are about taking responsibility, not making excuses. Effectively, one wonders how many women CEOs
were elevated on the basis of their ability and how many were given their jobs
in order to make political points.

Covert writes:

But we
do know that politics most likely doesn’t reflect how progress works for women
trying to crack the corporate glass ceiling. The path doesn’t get dramatically
easier; in fact, it is often harder to make progress every time a woman steps
into an executive office.

In
2009, the year after Mrs. Clinton conceded, women made up 13.5
percent of the top jobs at Fortune 500 companies. By 2013, that share
barely inched up to 14.6
percent. Putting cracks in the glass ceiling may not matter as much as what
happens after it’s shattered.

She is quite correct to note that what really matters is
doing the job, not why you got it. And certainly not... looking the part. When
she was secretary of state Hillary Clinton looked the part but didn’t do the
job.

Covert attempts to explain away female underperformance. She
begins by complaining that women face larger challenges when they assume
executive authority. This is because they tend to get their jobs in time of
trouble or turmoil:

Too few
women make it into corporate leadership. And the battle has only just begun
once they get there. Awidebodyofresearch has
uncovered a troubling trend: Women, as well as minorities, often get a chance
at leadership only in times of turmoil. In one
study of large companies listed on the London Stock Exchange, those
that put women on their boards had just experienced consistently bad stock
performance, while companies were generally stable before they appointed men.

In another study of
all the promotions to chief executive at Fortune 500 companies over a 15-year
period, a company’s return on equity was consistently and significantly
negative just before a woman or minority candidate got the job. Being thrust
onto the glass cliff, as this phenomenon has become known, is a much more
common way for a woman to get a shot at an executive role than for a man.

This proves what, exactly? Why would floundering companies
have a tendency to hire women CEOs? Does Covert think that the board members who
make these appointments do it to set women up for failure? Do boards try to
tank their companies in order to make women look bad?

One should say that women executives are presented with
great challenges. But, it’s not as though no man ever tried to bring a failing
company back from the brink. Some succeed; some fail. For Covert, when women
fail it’s a reason to complain.

Covert believes that powerful women make us “uncomfortable.”
For the record, the word is the essence of girl talk—it does not really belong
in the world of executive leadership and should not be used to explain the fact
that most people prefer male to female executives:

The
disadvantage continues once they start trying to do their jobs, because
powerful women still make us uncomfortable. In polling, both men and women say
they prefer to
have men in senior executive roles at Fortune 500 companies. Just two women
make an appearance on a list of the 51 top
rated C.E.O.s that employees enjoy working for. Ms. Mayer, one of
them, is nearly dead last.

Covert is assuming that powerful women are doing great jobs.
If they were Covert would not be trying to excuse their failures. By her
lights, women are just as qualified and competent as men because we keep saying
so. If they underperform, it must be a sign of sexism, thus of perception.

She might have questioned the poll where men and women said
they preferred to have men in senior executive roles. It was performed on a
self-selected sampling.

But, she also should have noticed that the list of the top
rated CEOs was compiled by polling employees. When I looked up the list I saw
contains 50 names. All 50 of the highest rated CEOs are male.

Of course, it may be the case that people do not like women
CEOs because said CEOs are not doing a good job. It may be sexism, but then
again, it may be based on performance:

We may
just not like seeing a woman act like a boss. Research has found that women face a
backlash — both personal and financial — when they act assertively at
work. Female leaders are more
likely to be called abrasive, strident, aggressive and even emotional.

And
given the disasters so many inherit, it shouldn’t be surprising that female
chief executives are more
likely to get forced out of their jobs than male ones. Not all of us
can engineer stunning turnarounds.

Need I mention that the last sentence is whiny.

Unfortunately, Covert has a bean-counter mentality. She
believes that more women in the executive suite is intrinsically a good thing,
regardless of performance. She does not care about the bottom line.

Progress
is not inevitable, though, nor is it fixed. The country has a complicated
relationship with powerful women: They have to keep proving themselves over and
over again, being twice as good, and dragging one woman through the process
doesn’t make it easier for those who follow.

The notion of twice-as-good is a canard. Giving a
woman executive a challenge is not an effort to make her work twice as hard or
be twice as good.

It’s not so much that the country has not gotten used to
seeing women in charge, but that many women executives are not doing a very
good job. Count Hillary Clinton on that list.

Of the other hand, Hillary will find it easier to return to the
White House by singing The Glass Ceiling Blues than by reciting The Vagina
Monologues.

1 comment:

Now we know why it is the "Vagina Monologue" instead of the "Vagina Dialogue." Too many democrats think they will get Bill Clinton again instead of Hillary's frilly little police state. She will do for gender relations what Obama has done for race relations.